''' *STUDENTS -!WOW!- SOCIETIES* '''

*THE BIGGEST PROBLEM* confronting the *Developing World*, say Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, SiriLanka, and on and on, is their obsession with the 'West':

!West This and West That!.

On one hand are those embattled liberals who think everything, that everything wrong with the Developing World can be explained by our refusal to internalise the values of Western society-

*By eschewing rationality in favour of superstition and tradition we have mired ourselves in backwardness and bigotry*.

On the other hand, explains one brilliant writer, [in the context of Pakistan], are more powerful conservatives that believe we have taken far too much from the Western Societies already, and that secular values need to be once and for all displaced by 'genuine Islam'.

THE EVOLUTION OF HUMAN SOCIETIES, has been variously characterized as the growth of an agricultural society, industrial society, knowledge society-

And now, !WOW! -the World Students Society. These characterizations show the key feature of a given period of history.

The term *knowledge society* is used against the backdrop of how earlier human societies had evolved over the centuries, starting with agrarian societies, when people were largely focused on farming for survival.

That period culminated when human societies developed highly sophisticated machines and means of communication, and achieved mass production of goods in less time.

This stage called the Industrial Revolution started around the 18th century in Britain and then spread to other countries.

Then emerged a new wave of development, starting around the 1960s, that is now called the Knowledge Society.

While agrarian societies were based mainly on farming and industrial societies on skills, knowledge societies are overwhelmingly based on knowledge and information.

What are the key features of a knowledge society? What challenges does it it throw to memory based or traditional societies?

These are pertinent questions that societies -including Muslim societies- must ask of themselves. Let us briefly look at how knowledge society is understood.

A knowledge society -in the manner of many other complex concepts -is described in several ways, the common features of which to focus on generation, multiplication, trade, transportation, and preservation of knowledge and information, which are seen as the drivers of modern societies.

Although knowledge and information have always been important, what make knowledge societies different are the scale of their need and the expanse of their utilization, as well as the speed and scale with which both are generated, accessed, stored, transferred and transacted.

There is a great Persian saying which, roughly translated, means: knowledge is not what is in the 'boat' but it is that which is in the 'chest' of the learned.

Knowledge was once seen as something to be memorized, which was highly praised as the written word was uncommon, and hence the 'chest' were the hard disks.

Times have radically changed.

Today, an immense amount of knowledge is stored in small devices; even a whole library can be saved on a disk which does not take much space either, and can be transferred to another person or institution, sitting in a cozy room of a library in different continent, within a nano moment.

Second, older societies were at great risk of losing the books and manuscripts of very important writers.

In fact, many human societies have lost much of the incredible knowledge through natural or man-made disasters.

In years ahead, if you all truly and genuinely work, - sincerely and seriously hard, only one and one society will stand out in eternity:

The World Students Society, lovingly called, !WOW! and its comprehensive Ecosystem 2011. And all this through the hardwork of Sam Daily Times : *The voice of the Voiceless*.

The Honour and Serving of the * Latest Operational Research on Societies* continues. Thank Ya all for reading and sharing forward. And see you on the following one:

With respectful dedication to the Leaders, Students, Professors and Teachers of the World. See Ya all on !WOW! -the World Students Society and Twitter-!E-WOW! -the Ecosystem 2011: